By the orange light of Helios Beta
by richard-nunes
Summary: Lieutenants Cadmus and Fletcher discover a reminder of the past, come face-to-face with the present and see their own future. It has all happened before.
1. Chapter 1

Location: Ouranos Asteroid Belt, Helios Beta System

The Raptor appeared suddenly. "No nearby DRADIS contacts." Lieutenant Fletcher watched her screens for Cylon raiders. "No contacts out to 90 million metrics," he said aloud for the benefit of the pilot.

"There are a lot of asteroids out there, plenty of places to hide." Lieutenant Cadmus hunched slightly to look through the forward window. He had always been tall but his bulk kept him out of competitive pyramid. "A few Colonials may still be out there."

A cyan-dotted sphere expanded outwards on Lieutenant Fletcher's screens denoting the range at which a Colonial or Cylon ship would detect the Raptor's presence. By a quirk of physics, Fletcher could observe objects before they could observe him; a Cylon raider would cast a silhouette against background stars but could only see the Raptor when it began casting a silhouette by jumping into nearby space.

"We'll sit tight for a few more minutes, give the engines time to spin up." Cadmus tapped his finger across the console quickly checking all systems. He tapped the white torpedo indicator light twice just to be sure. At the first sign of trouble, he'd slip the switch and the indicator light would turn red to show they were armed and ready. "Still no DRADIS contacts?"

"Nothing definitive. Wait. I'm picking up a Colonial transponder." The co-pilot perked up. "It's a tap code. I..." It had been some time since she heard a tap code message. It was required learning in at College, something every pilot learned, but she had never heard it in the field. "It's a distress call."

"Copy me on the channel. We need to triangulate the source, see if it's a legitimate call for help. It's unusual to use a tap code. It could be the Cylons fifty years out of date." Lieutenant Cadmus grimaced as he took over flight control.

"Still nothing. The sky is clear. Jump engine is primed if you need it."

"Thank you, Semele." Lieutenant Cadmus moved the ship forward, keeping an eye on the distress. The source vector barely changed, they were heading towards the source. Maintaining the heading would minimize the Raptor's silhouette in case it was a trap. Approaching the source from an oblique angle would give he and Lieutenant Fletcher a firm point of origin. Jump engines had time to spin up since their jump near the asteroid belt; they could jump away in a pinch. "I'm going to fix the source. Changing heading positive ten gradians by zero."

"Acknowledged. The sky is still clear." Lieutenant Fletcher watched her screens diligently.

"There is a lot of rock between us and the source of the distress call. A Cylon raider could fit into a lot of those nooks." Cadmus tried to see the asteroids through the forward window but they were still specks in the distance reflecting the weak orange light of the star.

"The asteroids are creating some blind spots. That can't be helped. Active DRADIS scanning would be announcing our presence loud and clear to every Cylon out there." Fletcher started to receive telemetry from the asteroids, their vector and rotation. A small ship like a Colonial Raptor or Cylon Raider would be too small to shift the larger asteroids but either would affect the magnetic and gravitational fields of small asteroids.

"Adjusting heading positive ten gradians by positive fifteen gradians, negative ten pitch." The Raptor moved wider of the asteroid field under the controls of the heavy-set pilot.

The two marines shifted in their seats. Neither seemed to enjoy the prospect of sidding idle as the Raptor moved slowly forward.

"No perturbations in the asteroid field. Go ahead. No change in the signal, either."

"We should respond, let them know there is a friendly nearby." Cadmus loaded a translation program to tap out a response. "I'll send the Bucs' starting lineup." Despite all that happened, the lieutenant was still a loyal fan of the Caprica City Bucaneers.

"It may be automated, no one alive to turn it off. Keep the response signal on a tight band. Let's see how this plays out."

"Contact!" Lieutenant Fletcher gave the system a second to identify the red icon that appeared on her screen at the edge of a large asteroid. "It lines up with the incoming signal. The signal is stronger. We must have heard it reflecting off some of the metallic asteroids. I'm not hearing any distortion, now."

"I don't hear a change in the signal. It must be automated." A more shocking realization hit Lieutenant Cadmus. "Or, by Hades' mercy, they hate the beautiful game of pyramid. No, that's not possible. I'm plotting a straightline course for the source of the signa. Anything else on DRADIS?"

"It's the only contact. Distance is 300 million metrics."

"We should see some visual detail, even at this distance." The orange light of Helios Beta flooded the interior as the Raptor turned towards the source of the signal."

"It's a Rhino." Fletcher identifying the unique design. "Still to far to see it's markings but the silhouette is definitely an old Rhino."

"You think it's been out here all this time? That model hasn't been manufactured in fifty years." Cadmus had a coffee table book with schematics of some of the more famous ships of the Colonial Fleet. That was the era of the Spitfire and the Viper. "It couldn't possibly have been broadcasting this whole time. It would have been picked up by mining or salvage ships."

"Maybe it moved recently, picked up sunlight enough to charge batteries. Maybe the Cylon attack triggered something. It must have been a picket ship in the Cylon War." Fletcher was curious to know more.

Cadmus nodded. "The crew of that ship died with the Cylon threat hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damacles. You, I, all of us are witnesses to the sword's fall."

"I'm going aboard to take a look." The excitement in Lieutenant Fletcher's voice was audible. "If it's in good condition, we'll fly it back to Talaria."

"If that Rhino has been sitting idle for fifty years, it's FTL has long been scrammed." Cadmus would otherwise jump at the opportunity to board a classic ship. He didn't want Semele onthe Rhino if a Cylon raider jumped nearby.

"Even if I can copy it's DRADIS log, it'll be valuable intelligence." Deep down, Fletcher just wanted to explore. It was a potentially useful source of intelligence, it carried supplies that could be salvaged, weaponry the Convoy sorely needed. A single escort and a pair of Raptor's wouldn't put up much of a fight against a coordinated Cylon attack. She hoped it's FTL could still spin up.

"I'll take us in as close as possible." The pilot maneouvred closer. "DRADIS is still clear?"

"It's still clear. Not even a stray wireless signal." Fletcher checked each of the half-dozen screens at her station in the Raptor's cabin.

"I'll take you within arms reach." stated the pilot.

"Thanks Moari. When we're close enough, I'll make the jump."

"The Corporal will go over first. We don't know what to expect aboard the Rhino. It could be a trap." Cadmus supressed his male desire to face the danger ahead of his female co-pilot. He knew she was tough as nails and could face whatever happened over there. Still, they carried to marines for a reason. If it was a trap, a Marine Corporal would have the training to deal with it.

"You really think there are Cylons aboard?"

"Maybe. They find a museum relic, set up a distress call, lure Colonial ships in and spring the trap. Or, this is a trap for the Cylons set fifty years ago. Cylons go aboard looking for military secrets and spring the trap." Cadmus was an officer and he was putting an enlisted crewman ahead of a fellow officer.

The corporal nodded to the pilots. "We'll go aboard, clear it if necessary and signal you to come aboard Lieutenant."

"Thank you Corporal. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough." A double-beep took her attention away from the forward window back to her console. "I can make out the registry number as Constellation-Apollo-Five-One-Nine-Orion. There might be a listing in Talaria's records."

"We'll add the entry if it's not there." The Raptor moved laterally the last few metrons. "Corporal, you're up."

All four personnel in the Raptor checked the seals on their suits and signalled with a thumbs up.

"Evacuating air from the cabin in three, two, one." Fletcher flipped the switch to shut off the air circulation and suction air from the cockpit, cabin and hold. She looked around to make sure her pilot and the two marines maintained a thumbs up. "The air is as thin as it's going to get.

The two Marines stood by the port-side hatch, pulled safety cables down from the ceiling and secured them to eachother's loop behind the shoulder blades. A double-tap on the helmet signalled the two were securely fastened to the Raptor. Cadmus and Fletcher secured the safety cables to their own chests. When the hatch was open, they would be exposed to open space.

"I'm ready, Lieutenants." stated the lead marine.

"You are clear to proceed, Corporal." Lieutenant Cadmus confirmed the Raptor was at a complete stop.

Fletcher acknowledged the safety warning on her screen and released the mechanical lock on the hatch. It opened less than an inch and the remaining air rushed out. The vacuum meant their helmets would no longer conduct sound. They would hear eachother via short-range wireless. She acknowledged a second safety warning and the hatch opened slowly upwards.

Fletcher felt the heat suck out of the Raptor as the last of the air evacuated to space. "You're clear corporal."

The corporal swung himself onto the wing of the Raptor, crouched, pointed his arm at the Rhino and pushed off. On reaching the Rhino, he grabbed a handle next to it's own hatch. "I'll try the manual release." Pulling hard on the handle, the Rhino's door opened a half inch. "Hatch is open. No air seapage, the interior is vacuum."

"I'm not reading any change in the distress call. Enter if you think it's safe, corporal." Fletcher was anxious to board. She understood the precaution of sending a trained Marine aboard first but she wanted to board it, see what secrets it held.

"I'm going in." The corporal poked his head in the open hatch. "I have two bodies. The pilots died at their posts."

Fletcher took a deep breath. It wasn't a trap. For one reason or another the Rhino hid amongst the asteroids and the crew stayed aboard.

"They died from shrapnel puncturing their flight suits." The corporal's voice dropped. "I can see pinpoints of light from Helios Beta through the decking."

"The pilots died watching for a Cylon attack that didn't happen for fifty years after they passed. Search-and-rescue never found them." To Lieutenant Cadmus, as a Raptor pilot, it was always a possibility to be lost in deep space. He was trained to venture apart from all support of a ship-of-the-line. He had always returned home. The two pilots aboard the aging Rhino never returned home. Since the Fall, none would return to home soil.

"It's possible. Soldiers wouldn't leave them here like this. We need to bring the bodies with us, give them a proper funeral." The corporal examined the two no further. He whispered a quiet prayer: 'Give them into the charge of swift messengers to carry them, of Hypnos and of Thanatos, and lay them down within the rich countryside of broad Lycia.'

"There is no change to the distress call, no new signals on the wireless. If this is a trap, it's not set to explode from proximity. We've been in the system a short time and DRADIS is clear." Fletcher stood and walked to the hatch to see the Rhino directly.

"Lieutenant Fletcher makes a strong point. There is nothing to indicate this is other than a Rhino in deep space the victim of at attack or meteor shower and not found for fifty years." The corporal had surveyed the entire cabin and found nothing further.

"Semele... go ahead." Cadmus was the ranking officer and the call was his.

"Thank you, Moari." Fletcher attached a safety line from the hatch and released the line that bound her to her console. She stepped out quickly, lined up her trajectory and pushed off.

The corporal waited at the Rhino's open hatch but Fletcher floated across perfectly.

Once inside, Fletcher noted the same pinpoints of golden light. The corporal had already moved the bodies to the rear of the cabin, leaving the workstations clear.

"The systems must be running on residual power." Fletcher sat at the co-pilot station in the cockpit. She tapped several buttons stiff from the extreme cold of half a century. "It looks like solar panels have been absorbing enough light to keep the computer core functional. The distress call is on an automated loop."

"Leave it running. If we turn it off now, it'll be obvious a Colonial ship was here. It's been running for some time and has become background noise. The Cylons will note it suddenly stopping and come to investigate."

"It's your call, Lieutenant." Fletcher was looking through other system displays to see what remained functional.

"Leave a calling card for the next Colonials to answer the call." Cadmus hoped there were other Colonial ships somewhere out there evading Cylons as they were. If they came to this Rhino, they'd know other survived.

"Yes, sir. I'll leave a note in the system for the next soldiers that board her. We'll take the bodies, download the memory core, leave the ship. From the schematics, the engine core is cold. This ship may have chemical thursters but definitely no FTL capability. The fissable material has degraded into a block of lead."

"Corporal, return the bodies to the Raptor. Fletcher, access the computer core and upload to the Raptor."

"Will do." Fletcher opened a wireless link to the Raptor to copy the Rhino's memory.

The marines carried the bodies through the hatch carefully. They pushed off back to the Raptor. Once aboard, they'd be secured pending a proper passage to the afterlife.

"DRADIS contact! It's close. Fletcher, get your ass back here." Cadmus waited anxiously for the unknown contact to resolve into a friend or foe. "Cylon raider! All weapons hot."

Cadmus had a firm lock on the Cylon ship bearing down on their positions. It was still a few minutes outside of optimal firing range. "You only have a minute."

Lieutenant Fletcher hesitated. The wireless link kept dropping off as power levels dipped. "I'm coming back." She started to pull herself out of her seat. The Raptor's FTL was spun up and escaping a Cylon raider was more important than copying the memory of a 50-year-old craft. She wanted to know why the craft was here, how it remained unnoticed for so long.

"Whoa. What the frack?" Cadmus' displays blinked out one at a time. The communications display was the last one. It flared into activity as each system failed. Every communications channel was bombarded, jammed. "I'm hacked. I'm losing all of my systems"

"I'm being bombarded with a jamming signal." The wireless display lit up in solid colour as a powerful signal hit the antenna. "No, it's a single channel. The amplitude is off the scale." Her earphone was silent. Her heads-up display also showed the incoming signal but no effect that she could detect. "Moari! Can you still hear me?"

"I can. The suits have an independant wireless transciever." Lieutenant Cadmus tapped at his blank screens. "Every system is down."

"Where is the Cylon raider?"

"The raider was at the edge of weapons range. Does the Rhino have any working systems?" The Raptor was dead in space. In a matter of seconds, the Cylons managed to hack and shut down every system. He'd had his back to the wall before. The thought of the two Rhino pilots killed and left in deep space crossed his mind. His end wouldn't be so peaceful. The raider was closing the distance for a kill shot. He and Semele wouldn't freeze, they'd burn. If the Rhino had any functional systems, they might have a chance.

"I... I have every system. The hack isn't having any effect." Fletcher looked around the fifty-year old cockpit. "The systems aboard are fifty years out of date. The Cylons are hacking the Raptor's modern system. The Rhino isn't affected. Get over here and we'll figure something out."

"I'm staying aboard the Raptor. At this point, the Cylon may not realize you're on the Rhino. If we jump from one to the other, it'll know for sure. That hesitation gives you extra time." Cadmus looked over this shoulder to the marines aboard. They may only have one minute of breath left in them, staying put might give Semele an extra minute.

Lieutenant Fletcher looked over the displays to see what she had to work with. The solar panels were collecting a trickle of the golden sunlight that filtered through the asteroid belt. The batteries were low, enough to transmit a distress call, power the displays dimly, not much else. She could fire flares to draw the incoming missiles away from their targets. No. It would buy them a few minutes but the Cylon Raider would fire volleys until the Rhino's store was depleted. "I'm going to fire the missiles I have aboard."

"You have tactical control?" Lieutenant Cadmus looked at the blank DRADIS console but the last image was etched in his mind: a sole Cylon contact.

Fletcher looked out the hatch for the moving silver dot in the sky. It was faint but noticeable against the starscape. Without a functional guidance system, the missiles would home on their own. From the faint silver dot, a pair of dots also appeared. The Cylon had fired missiles at the now-disabled Raptor. "Missile incoming."

"Semele." Cadmus felt some anxiety about his fate. He wasn't going to drift in the cold deep of space. He was target practice for a toaster. "You have tactical control?"

The Raider seemed to be on a straightline course. It made logical sense: the Raptor was disabled, the Rhino was disabled, a straight line was the fastest path to close the distance. Firing missiles directly at the Raider would close the distance twice as quickly. She reached the fire control and armed it. Most of the lights on the panel blinked green. "Frak. This thing is armed to the teeth. I have sixteen missiles primed and ready." She glanced through the hatch, the Raider was distinct against the sky. "I'm firing." She paused between pressing the button each time, giving a ten-second gap. The electric trigger drew very little current as the propellant pulled the missiles off their pylons. The missiles were too small to see after a few seconds in flight. The Cylon's own missiles were still too far away. If DRADIS was functional, it would show missile bearing down on the Raptor.

Lieutenant Cadmus saw the missiles launch from the far side of the Rhino at ten second delays. "Missiles away. Two or three minutes until impact." They drifted a distance before their propellant ignited and they shot forward leaving a thin trail in their wake. "Semele, do you any other systems active?"

"I don't have DRADIS." Without DRADIS, the missiles would guide themselves and their exploding warheads would be the only indication they landed their targets. Three minutes until they knew it was a hit or a miss. "I still have wireless. I'm still receiving a signal from the Cylon raider. It sounds like the original signal is repeating. The Cylon keeps starting their hacking signal over and over again." Lieutenant Fletcher turned up the gain on the Cylon signal. It was a series of high tones, a falling glissando and the high tones repeated. It was a machine following it's programming without any realization it's actions were futile. The Rhino was disabled from long years in deep space with pale golden starlight to keep it's distress call beckoning.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm going to try a hard reboot. If we regain FTL control, we can jump out of here." Cadmus tripped the power to the computer core. Nothing happened. He tried it twice more and threw the panel through the open hatch into space in frustration. "The core is not responding. The hack infiltrated every system. The Raptor is dead in space."

"The Rhino needs power. I think most of the systems would be functional if they were sufficiently powered."

"FTL hasn't changed much in the last fifty years. If we can spin it up, we can jump into open space near the Convoy and wait for pickup.

"Do we have any cabling to link the Raptor and Rhino? We can use the Raptors reactor, see if the Rhino's FTL control system will let us program a jump." Fletcher's voice raised in pitch with the possibility of a rudimentary link and means of escape.

Cadmus turned from the open hatch. The Cylon raider was a visibly moving spot of light against the starscape, the incoming missiles too small to see, their own also too small to see. Semele had hardwired tactical countermeasures, there was the possibility of drawing the incoming missiles off course. He swallowed down the anxiety of what could be his last minute. His co-pilot had a plan and he was going to spend his last moments dragging cabling through space if it might save her life. "Corporal, under the floor panel marked 'crosslink cables'." He was already reaching for the handle as he was ordering the corporal to action. "It's a 50-metron power and uplink cable."

The lieutenant and the corporal pulled at end edge to release the panel that Cadmus unceremoniously tossed through the hatch and into open space. The corporal grabbed the brightly-marked end and was out the hatch in a second. He threw the edge of the cable towards the Rhino and pulled the cabling from it's spindle.

"We won't need to program jump coordinates." His mind quieted, he saw this as a viable option. The incoming Cylon missiles were two minutes away and closing the distance quickly. "The FTL drive is spun-up and already programmed with emergency jump-away coordinates. All we need access to it's independant computer system to trigger the emergency jump."

"I haven't use the kernel interface since Flight School." The kernel interface was not something she used day-to-day, not even as a hobbyist.

The corporal floated very slowly. It was less a minute from the Raptor to the Rhino but every second felt stretched. As the corporal floated, he could see a halo no larger than the point of a needle. The incoming Cylon missiles were close enough to see, their ion trail forming a halo behind the warhead. He had no means to close the distance more quickly. Behind him Lieutenant Cadmus was pulling the heavy cable off it's spindle and his own safety line was uncoiling the further he floated from the Raptor.

Lieutenant Fletcher watched the corporal float across the gap from the Raptor to the Rhino. As soon as he touched down, she connected the uplink capble to a connection under the pilot's console.

Lieutenant Cadmus watched the Cylon raider approaching. He saw plenty of video footage from the Cylon War and imagined that same ominous red eye scanning back and forth from the Raptor to the Rhino and back. It's first volley disabled the Raptor. The second and third volley were less than a minute away and closing fast.

"The cable is linked." Lieutenant Fletcher sat at the pilot's console watching white text and a blinking cursor on a black screen. "What do I next?"

"At the prompt, type 'find system\ftl?'. There should only be one, the FTL drive, the one aboard the Raptor." Lieutenant Cadmus was working through the instructions in his head. "Connect to it by name using your service number and authentication code. As soon as the cursor is visible, just type 'emergency'. That will trigger the emergency jump procedure."

"Here goes." Fletcher followed Moari's instructions.

As soon as Lieutenant Fletcher hit the final key, she was knocked out of her seat. The Rhino spun wing-over-wing. She could see the stars outside spinning. "Are we hit?" she asked herself as much as the corporal holding onto a bar across the ceiling with both hands.

Emergency thursters triggered to right the Rhino. Less than half fired correctly causing the Rhino to buck chaotically. It was well over a minute before it was stilled, the officer and marine inside thoroughly shaken.

The Raptor was gone. It had jumped.

The incoming missiles detonated as the concussion wave from the Raptor's jump. At a distance of a dozen metrons, their warhead detonated with much of the force directed away from the Raptor and Rhino.

Lieutenant Fletcher saw a flash and halo of burning gas from the Cylon raider. At least one of her snapshot missiles reached it's target. She let out a slow breath. The immediate threat was neutralized.

"Moari, missiles are on target." She stayed in the pilot's seat, her head still swimming from the out-of-control movement of the Rhino.

She heard dead air.

"Moari, can you hear me?" She struggled out of the pilot's seat the open hatch.

The corporal at the hatch shrugged his shoulders and leaned out to increase his field of view. "I don't see the Raptor, Lieutenant."

Fletcher saw open space and puncutated by Ouranos asteroids. "Step out. It must be on our blind side."

The corporal nodded as he pulled himself out of the Rhino to peek over the port wing's leading edge. He disappeared from view, his safety cable winding out as he pulled himself around to the far side of the Rhino.

Location: Unknown

Lieutenant Cadmus stood at the hatch. He felt the jump in the pit of his stomach as a wave of nausea. The flash, he was told, was the result of the photons at the event horizon converting to light radiation.

"You did it Semele, we're clear." He heard no response on his helmet wireless. He looked around at the stars surrounding him. It felt like there was a mental puzzle piece missing. The immediate threat of the Cylon raider was solved. The incoming missiles were only metrons away when Lieutenant Semele Fletcher triggered the jump. He could clearly see their gas tails, flourescent in the golden light of Helios Beta. "Frak me." The feeling in the pit of his stomach deepened. The Rhino was still there, still with the Cylon in the asteroid belt. "Frak me." The jump radius was tight to the Raptor, Semele was aboard the Rhino too far for the Raptor's jump engines to reach. He told her to trigger the jump immediately. He didn't give her time to get back to the Raptor.

"Frak me." He left her behind.

Location: Ouranos Asteroid Belt, Helios Beta System

"Do you see them?" Fletcher stood at the open hatch with one hand on the safety bar. The Marine Corporal had disappeared around the far side of the Rhino. She held herself from asking a second time. The range of her helmet wireless was limited by distance and large spacefaring craft like the Rhino between herself and the Marine. She knew he was still looking by the safety cable slowly unwinding from it's spindle.

The Marine came back into view. "I see no sign of the Raptor, Lieutenant. There are two debris halos. One looks like the Cylon Raider quite a distance away. The other is small, too small to be the Raptor."

"Moari jumped." She said it aloud more for herself than the Marine. Her grandmother used to say that whispering into a westwind, Zephyrus would trade her worries for flowers. The only wind she felt was the fan blowing stale air around her helmet. Beyond her visor was the vast emptiness of space; no winds there.

Fletcher hadn't yet learned the name of the Marine. His family name was printed on the front of his flightsuit. "What's your given name, Corporal Atryton? Given our situation, I think we can drop the formality of rank."

"Ilia, ma'am."

"Semele." She shielded her eyes from the golden light of Helios Beta. "We're clearing the asteroid field. The solar panels are still functional. In time, the batteries will build enough charge to run a few more systems."

Ilia glanced at his air supply. "My air is getting thin." He had some time before the carbon levels in his suit would affect his mind and reflexes. Aboard the Raptor, it was simple enough to trade carbon diox for oxygon.

Location: Raptor One, Whereabouts Unknown

Lieutenant Cadmus sat at his station, his helmet in his hands, elbows on the console. "I'll get us back to Helios Beta, Corporal." He spoke over his shoulder to the young Marine still standing at the hatch. "Close the hatch. There's nothing to see out there."

The Marine pulled in his half of the interlink cable severed in the jump and pulled the hatch closed. He manually locked it into place.

Cadmus checked his oxygon levels. "Purge the air in your flight suit and connect it to the Raptor's air system. The negative differential will bring in oxygon-enriched air from the tanks." Cadmus followed his own advice and felt immediately refreshed. Negative air pressure was the best way to keep him breathing in lieu of working air pumps. His first problem was solved. If the Rhino's air tanks weren't perforated like it's pilots, there would be sufficient air until he could return to her.

The Cylons hacked the communications system and infiltrated every system, shutting him down. His previous attempts to restart the main computer failed because either the Cylons damaged or deleted the memory core. Like the Rhino, Raptors have a read-only kernel system. If he could access that kernel system, he could determine what damage had been done. He knew the FTL was running because the emergency jump worked. Even now he could feel the rumble of it spinning up. He pressed the manual start button on the side panel and held it.

His display was blank except for a blinking cursor. He surveyed systems still operational... none. The Cylon hack had effectively disabled every single system aboard the ship.

He and the corporal would would have to purge and replenish their air every hour without the benefit of circulation and scrubbing of the carbon diox in the air.

The DRADIS platform was functional under it's last settings. There was no system to adjust it or interpret it's findings. Cadmus tuned into the DRADIS' raw data stream and heard only the periodic timer. That was a positive sign. As long as DRADIS was silent, it meant nothing nearby. If a Colonial or Cylon craft approached, he would hear an indecipherable series of tones. There was no way for him to interpret the tones, figure out what was out there, where it was, how fast it was moving. He turned the gain to a low setting and kept the data stream connected to his audio line. If it started to chirp, he'd have to identify the contact by sight.

The FTL reactor was running. It's internal system was buffered from the Cylon hack. That much he knew for sure. He displayed the previous ten jumps... he knew where he was and where he wanted to go. He was 12 light-hours above the Helios Beta plain.

Location: Ouranos Asteroid Belt, Helios Beta System

"There must be supplies aboard: air, water, food. Check the cargo compartments."

"Yes, ma'am." He turned to the rear section of the Rhino. The space was small.

"Call me Semele."

"Sorry. Semele. I'll see what I can find." He used his hand light to read the labels on each compartment. The first two held spare flight suits with tubes to connect to the Rhino for air; no independent air system. He found the pantry compartment. "I found food, mostly freeze-dried. Water from the springs near Delphi. Dehydrated juice. It will keep up our electrolytes." The Rhino was a small space. There wasn't much storage. "That's it."

"Internal batteries are charging." The pressure wave from the Raptor's jump knocked them into more open space giving the solar panels plenty of golden starlight. Semele looked at her feet to see pinpoints of the same light coming through the hull. "I can't pressurize the cockpit without the air escaping into space. Our suits are compatible with the connections are each console." She connected a tube from her suit that would provide electricity to charge her suit, air for her suit's air pump and scrubber and potable water. Without knowing how long she'd have to stay in the suit, she wanted to keep her fluid intake low.

"During boot, I once spent three weeks straight in an environmental suit. No sweat." Ilia wasn't worried about the confinement. He could pass the time with exercise. The lieutenant... Semele, would take care of the Rhino.

"In a few hours I'll have enough power to bring more systems online. The FTL drive has probably gone cold in the last fifty years. Even if I could spin it up, I don't have Talaria's position." Semele put on a brave face. They did need rescue to rejoin the Convoy. Ilia wasn't unattractive, she could populate a new Colony if necessary. "What flag do you fly?"

Ilia sensed some unease. Semele was out of her element. "Picon. A born-and-bred Queenstown brat. My father was a Marine before me. Our family lives in-barracks since my earliest memories." There was never any other consideration growing up. He never wore the bucket over his head when he and his friends played grunts-and-toasters as kids. "What flag were you born under?"

"Caprica. My mother claims to trace her ancestry back to the Founding." She chuckled. She didn't have the same sadness that most had after the Fall. Her mother died before she joined the Colonial Fleet, she had no siblings, she had lost contact with schoolmates. She was already alone when the Cylons came. "I've never been to Picon, what's it like?"

"Orderly. I don't just mean the people. The countryside is as neatly divided as city streets. It's very structured. Caprica is chaotic."

"It is chaotic." Caprica City, the capital, was a busy place and had sprawled over the decades into a metropolis. "I grew up in the hill country. Every family had a spot of land with crops or livestock. The kids played in the pastures, atop the walls of the narrow pedestrian streets." Her earliest memories as a child were running through tall grasses scaring the grazing animals. That was the distant past. "I haven't been back since I entered school." Despite the intimacy given their situation, she was not going to share everything with the Corporal. It was a residential school for children without families.

"Whenever I had more than three days leave, I took it on Picon. It's the only place that feels like home." Ilia let his emotions build for a fraction of a second before his instincts kicked in and he returned to his usual stoic composure. "Or, I took retreat on Gemenon." His charm was a helmet: the mark of a soldier as much as a sword or rifle. It was also a sign of Athena whom he venerated as his family's namesake goddess. "They have a beautiful temple in Parthenos.


	3. Chapter 3

Location: Raptor One, Whereabouts Unknown

From his vantage point, Lieutenant Cadmus could see Helios Beta, the distant orange star, and Hera, the giant planet, but nothing smaller than that. The asteroid belt was a haze encircling the star. He knew that Semele Fletcher, his co-pilot was somewhere on the edge of that haze. DRADIS was nothing more than a drone in his ear without a working computer to interpret the signals into something visual. It was probably open space between himself and Semele. Jumping back to his original position was too dangerous without a fairly accurate mapping of the asteroid belt. The Cylons erased his maps along with everything else. The first jump would cover most of the distance. He would give the asteroid belt a wide berth, look around, and figure out his next step.

"Prepare for jump," he spoke calmly into his helmet wireless. He manually keyed jump coordinates near his last position. He made some rough calculations, tried to recall the density of the asteroid field. Padding an extra 25% to his calculations, he was ready for the jump. "Jump."

The starfield outside his canopy changed instantly. He could hear his own breathing... he shook his head. Of course he could hear is own breathing. If the jump failed, he wouldn't have time to realize it. He needed to orient himself, confirm his position. Helios Beta was dimmer; the dust and rocks between himself and the star diminished it's brightness. Hera loomed larger in the opposite direction. Holding his thumb in front of the supergiant planet did not completely blot it out. He was closer to the planetary plane, closer to where he left Semele behind. He scanned the star-pricked blackness in every direction hoping to spot the Rhino.

"Prevt, Colonial Raptor. You have too much faith in Anders. He's the worst Captain the C-Bucs have ever had. He trains his team by meditating on mountain tops. Everyone knows the Golden Horns were going to take the title this year."

"Golden Horns have the speed but they can't match the physicality of the Panthers under Coach Taylor. They had a good draw at the start of the season. That's all." Lieutenant Cadmus was confident the voice coming over the wireless was human. A Cylon wouldn't have taken the time to learn the finer points of Pyramid for the slim possibility of it appearing in conversation. He had rudimentary access to several of the Raptor's systems. It could be enough to fight off another Cylon Raider. He had fire control without guidance systems nor DRADIS and a functional FTL drive. "Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

"My name is Kery. Thanks for shooting down the Raider. He's been trying to find my ship for weeks." The female voice spoke with less gratitude than the words suggested.

"Cylons don't give up easily." Lieutenant Cadmus found it hard to believe a civilian ship had remained hidden. "Survivors are rare. We've taken them on as we come across them. You're welcome to join the Convoy."

"I've had plenty of practice avoiding Colonial patrols and inspections. I didn't realize a Fleet survived." Kery was glad to be speaking with another human being. "How goes the war?"

"You misunderstand me. There is no Fleet. The Convoy has a single military asset. Every other ship is civilian."

"That's unfortunate."

"My co-pilot is aboard the Rhino that had been emitting a distress call on the wireless. We are in need of that additional military hardware and we will not turn civilians away."

"I thank you for the offer. I have passengers and very little space." Hind rarely transported passengers. Cargo had simple needs, never made demands. A convoy could offer protection and livelihood. Her ship's armaments were minimal. Combining arms with a military vessel would improve survivability for everyone. She has a front row seat to the encounter. She had seen the Raptor go dead, the Rhino fire off a good number of missiles, the Rhino drift away and the Raptor jumping back. "How functional is your Raptor?" Would the Raptor even provide military support, she questioned.

"I have rudimentary navigational controls. Any assistance you can provide in directing me is appreciated." This Kery would overcome the shortcomings of operating a Raptor with only a basic console as controls. Lieutenant Cadmus had to have trust in someone he knew only as a voice over the wireless. At least she was a Pyramid fan.

"I will approach. I have a landing platform large enough to accomodate your Raptor." Hind maneouvred towards the still Raptor. She eyed her passive detection system as she moved into the open. The Raptor would have an active, military-grade DRADIS system. She let her mind drift. In a previous life she would have stripped the DRADIS from the abandoned Rhino and found several bidders looking to acquire it. Since the Fall, she had interest in salvage to the extent it benefitted herself and those in her charge.

"How large is your ship?"

"Large enough. I can accomodate yourself and the Rhino." Her ship was designed to hold external cargo containters along it's length. Just aft of the living compartments were wide, flat platforms. She could attach lines to the Raptor's undercarriage to hold it secure.

"Good. Once docked, myself and the Marine with me will come aboard."

"I look forward to it." Hind was metrons away from the Raptor. "Prepare for landing." She lined the Raptor up squarely to the platform and slowed her approach. It was gentle enough that the Raptor's landing gear flexed without causing it to bounce.

Lieutenant Cadmus felt the two craft make contact. "Contact."

"When you're secure, there is a hatch at the forward edge of the platform. Once inside, proceed forward to the cockpit." Hind muted the channel. The Rhino was a distance away and drifting further away. With the Raptor Pilot aboard, she could pick up the Rhino, sum their resources and decide on a course of action.

Securing small craft by hand was standard training for shipboard personnel. A quick refresher was all the corporal needed. He and Cadmus spilled out the open hatch. Their boots held them to the Raptor's surface. Cadmus pushed off to an inset bolt line on the platform. He unscrewed the panel by hand exposing the caribiner and u-bolt as well as the spool of carbide cable. On the directly opposite side of the Raptor, the corporal was doing the same. He unspooled a couple metron on cable, carried the loose end to the forward edge of the Raptor and looped the caribiner to an anchor. He needed to loosely secure the Raptor in three or more spots before locking the more secure u-bolts. Kery was an experienced pilot, he admired. She maintained a very slow momentum that lightly held the Raptor to the platform's surface. Once secured, she could change direction without risking it floating off the surface. After a few minutes, Cadmus and the corporal were inside the airlock.

"We're aboard."

"Acknowledged. Follow the corridor forward to control." Kery watched the two Colonial Military personnel remove their helmets, whisper to eachother and look around and they came up the corridor.

The Rhino was drifting away slowly; she set a course. She maintained extreme caution, watching for any sign of a Cylon in the area. She assumed the Cylon Raider that appeared at random times over the past few weeks was the same one each time. It was entirely possible that they were different Raider's or that one had appeared beyond her line-of-sight and was in hiding just as she had been. A Cylon never gets bored and could easily out-wait a person. Her silhouette was small enough to minimize passive detection. She would know she was caught if she heard a DRADIS pulse. The electronic swish would announce her presence to a nearby Cylon and it would be her only warning.

Lieutenant Cadmus lead the way along the corridor. It was utilitarian; a structural steel beam rather than decking with conduits and bundles of wiring running along the walls. The corridor converged with two others further forward. The centre corridor extended aft between the landing pads to the cargo section of the ship. He opened the visor on his helmet but otherwise kept his suit sealed.

The cockpit was wide with stations along each side wall and a larger station at the front and a small display table in the centre. He extended his hand, "Lieutenant Cadmus, Colonial Navy."

Kery ignored the outstretched hand; kept her hands on her hips. "Welcome aboard."

He usually had a warmer response from the opposite gender. He dropped his hand but kept the smile. Only the forward command station was lit. "Is the rest of the crew catching up on rack time?"

"No crew. I have terminals for a crew of six but I rarely need more than one set of hands to fly it." The few times she'd transported people, they preferred to stay in a well-appointed cargo container. It was half-full of scrap metal, enough for inspectors to check off her cargo manifest. The far half was a comfortable space to hide in.

"Flying any ship is demanding for a single pilot. The Cylons struck weeks ago." Colonial regulations require a two-man flight crew. A single pilot for weeks without any support crew was not credible. Granted, the Cylons striking every colony simultaneously would put a pilot like Kery in the position of being alone without even the possibility of relief.

"I've been a pilot a long time, Lieutenant." Kery had taken on a crew sporadically. A mechanic or engineer was useful from time to time. She was weary of long-term professional attachments. She had spent most of the previous two weeks stationary with most systems at their lowest power levels watching random Cylon patrols.

"There aren't many of us left." Cadmus glanced around at the unlit stations. There were no momentos nor trinkets that would indicate anyone used the stations regularly. If Kery regularly flew alone, she had chosen to fly alone. Her actions before the Fall were probably illegal. "You never told me your last name." He gave his statement a bit of charm.

"No. I didn't."


	4. Chapter 4

Cadmus took a mental step back. She was not going to be swayed by a warm smile. It would take a bit more effort, a bit more time, to build a relationship. "You mentioned passengers." He was going to keep his questions short to give her the opportunity to expand on her responses. Directed questions would likely yield yes-no answers.

"Two dozen refugees from Hibernia." Kery expected a short flight after sneaking through the cordon around Virgon's only moon. That was her specialty. Her rendezvous would integrate the refugees into their own passenger manifest and continue on to Leonis.

"Refugees? From Virgon?" Cadmus was sure she was a criminal. There was long-standing discontent on Hibernia, a separatist movement and some terrorist acts in recent months. The terrorist acts were all against Royal Virgon holdings. The passengers were more likely escaping Virgon justice than supposed oppression.

"The Virgon Royal Family has kept the suppression out of the mainstream media. It's a powerful family with enough princes to keep their collective hands in every industry." Kery was not going to debate fealty to the state with a Colonial officer. He hadn't even introduced the marine standing behind him by name. "My responsibility is to deliver the refugees somewhere more comfortable than a shipping container."

"I'd like to speak with the refugees."

"We're two minutes away."

"From the Rhino?" It had been more than thirty minutes since he jumped and left Semele alone. He was her senior, she was his responsibility, and he told her to trigger the jump that left her behind.

"Yes. It's in a slow drift. We'll come alongside." Hind turned back to the main console. She checked the Rhino's telemetry and confirmed her own course. It was a straight-line drift with near zero rotation. She would move ahead of the Rhino, match it's movement vector, make contact and slow down. Once secured like the Raptor, they'd decide on a course of action.

"That can be a difficult maneouvre." Cadmus took a step forward. He would rather be the pilot than a passenger. "I can take the helm if you prefer."

Hind started to question whether picking up Colonial troops was a smart move. "I have sufficient experience."

Hind piloted her ship into position beneath the Rhino. The latter fell into shadow as the starboard landing platform aligned with the Rhino's ventral side.

"Semele. This is Moari. Do you read?" Cadmus tried his short-range wireless.

Cadmus nodded thanks to Kery. "I'm aboard the ship approaching your position. We've found our first survivors."

^Moari?^ Fletcher instinctively held her hand to the side of her helmet. ^What ship? Did you bring the Raptor's flight controls back online?^

"I'm aboard a civilian freight transport. I had to manually trigger the jump engines. The Cylon hack erased the control system but it still has it's own kernel system." He felt a little pride in his working knowledge of the Raptor's kernel system. Most pilots never learned how to use systems that close to the metal. "The Cylon Raider we came across was actually tracking the transport, had been for weeks. We'll secure the Rhino to the landing pad and decide on our next course of action."

Fletcher checked the weapons control system. She still bore missiles and had regained passive DRADIS. She held her hand over the hard-wired firing controls. ^What did we have for lunch yesterday?^

"An MRE that claimed to be Beef Bucatios. You added dried lentils rather than traditional squash." He was straightforward and specific. Cadmus knew she was trying to ascertain his identity. He chose Pyramid and Semele chose food.

^How many survivors?^ She stood up and began to pace. They stumbled onto the first survivors in weeks. She and Moari avoided Cylon Raiders. What if they're activity had been dictated by survivors. Every Cylon they avoided could have been a dozen lost souls found. She was overwhelmed with a sense of disgust. They had been avoiding conflict, saving their own skin, instead of fighting the Cylon threat. ^ I want to meet them.^

"We haven't gotten that far, yet." Cadmus was anxious to meet the passengers... refugees. Their mission had been to find water-ice asteroids in an area of space clear of Cylons. They encountered a devastating weapon that shut down the Raptor and he, himself had to be rescued by a civilian. "Let's get you aboard, first."

^Ok. I've been testing different systems as the solar cells have been charging. Most of the Rhino is functional. When we get back to Talaria, I'm sure Chief can patch it up and put it into service.^

Cadmus smiled. "He'll be in the heavens working on a classic craft like that. Sit tight. We're a minute out."

^Ok. We'll see you in a few.^

Gradually Hind slowed her vector, bringing the Rhino to a near stop.

Cadmus noticed the skill with which Kery piloted the cargo transport. She clearly had commercial flight experience. He glanced around her terminal and didn't find anything that showed she had served in the Colonial Navy.

"The Cylon Raider continuously broadcast a hack signal. You were unaffected." Lieutenant Cadmus wanted to better understand the Cylon weapon. The Rhino dated from the Cylon War, it's systems would have been from the time the Cylons left the Colonies for deep space. Yet, the Rhino was unaffected. The Raptor succumbed instantly. Something didn't add up.

"The Rhino is on the deck. We'll talk when you get back." Hind pointed to the back of the marine already headed down the corridor to the airlock.

Cadmus felt directing him to the landing deck was meant to distract from the conversation. He stayed several paces back of the marine admonishing himself for leaving Semele behind. He wanted to see her, know she was safe. Seeing her meant facing her and facing his own actions. With the Raptor and Rhino secured to the deck of a ship with a functional FTL drive was a fortunate turn of events. Returning to the convoy was his priority.

Fletcher stepped through the inner airlock hatch into the corridor.

Cadmus willed his feet forward. "Semele. I'm sorry."

"It's alright Moari. It was a tense situation." Semele Fletcher gave a quarter-smile. With his back to the wall, Moari did the best he could. Neither one of them thought through the plan. It was her own mistake, as well as his, that left her in the sights of a Cylon missile. His mistake saved him, her mistake doomed her. Somewhere the Fates were holding her life thread taut but the swish of scissors was held back for now. "I forgive you."

"I'm not asking forgiveness. I'm expressing apology with the hope that I'll repay the debt some day." Cadmus felt better after saying it. Abandoning a colleague and friend couldn't be fixed with a verbal apology. He would repay Semele with deeds. He thought about the books he read as child, winning the heart of a princess by deeds of heroism. It would be harder than spearing a boar or strangling a lion to make up for leaving Semele behind during a Cylon attack. "I'm glad you made it through." Semele was alive and his debt to her could be repaid over time. If she hadn't survived, it would be one more unpaid debt he'd bear to the grave. He had too many of those already. "The control deck is up the corridor."

Fletcher nodded. She didn't want to dwell on something they both survived. She followed Moari up the corridor. A look down the other direction curved out of view. It was the single passage that served as a spine to the ship.

"Captain," saluted Fletcher as she reached the flight deck. "I'm Lieutenant Semele Fletcher." She stepped aside to indicate the marine with whom she shared the Rhino. "Corporal Ilya Atryton. Thank you for bringing us aboard. The Rhino was a bit cramped."

"Lieutenant." Hind shook the young lieutenant's hand. The latter had a very different demeanor than Lieutenant Cadmus. She had introduced the marine that came aboard with her. "Corporal. To answer your earlier question, Lieutenant. I received the same signal from the Cylon Raider you did. I lost my navigation system instantly. The Cylon hack attempted to overtake other systems but I literally pulled my wireless transciever out of the console and shut down main power."

Fletcher glanced at Cadmus. There was distrust in his eyes. "The Cylons have clearly developed a hack to disable any Colonial ship, military or civilian." Fletcher had confirmed information that was obvious and offered nothing more. When she and Moari had some privacy, they would compare notes. There was nothing overly distrustful in the civilian captain's demeanour. "How long have you been hiding amongst the asteroids?"

"Weeks. I'm unarmed so the only option I had was to hide." Kery had installed countermeasures years earlier to avoid DRADIS detection. With the Colonial Fleet decimated, she had no reservations of now arming herself.

"That's sensible. Cylons are tenacious; they're programmed not to give up." Cadmus would have stood up to the Cylon Raider if the virus hadn't disabled every system aboard the Raptor. His own best option was to disengage the enemy. "How did the Cylon virus affect your systems?"

"They hammered my communications system, knocked it out. My navigation system crashed, I lost all of the Colonial waypoints." Hind left out a few details. She had a few military-grade systems purchased on the black market.

"It would make sense to specifically target military craft. With the Colonial Fleet brushed aside, the Cylons would have free reign."

"And Civilians left stranded," added Hind.

"They've been gone a long time," Fletcher added.

"It's been 50 years. A toaster would resent their station in life doing nothing but toasting bread for 50 years." Cadmus chuckled at his own joke. The derogatory nickname for the Cylons that revolted against Earth was an allusion to the shiny chrome exteriors of the original units. The Cylon King was always named 'Spot' and played by the smallest child in the group. The Cylon King would direct his loyal troops against the Grunts who would fight back and pummel the Cylon King in the end. The Grunts always beat the Toasters. There was no mercy when the two sides fought. "The Cylons don't need humans. They can build Centurions to do whatever menial task is required."

"Then why come back at all? Revenge?" Hind was content with how her life turned out. It took a long time to get to her current state. Things had finally come together. "To finish what they started? Time isn't a consideration if their bodies are built to last 500 years."

"Their original program was to wipe out Colonial civilization. We beat them back 50 years ago. This time they're doing a better job. They haven't won as long as one human survives."

"Lieutenant Cadmus mentioned survivors?"

"I have two dozen or so refugees from Hibernia. They have few comforts: air, water, food and some space to walk around." Hind spent little time with the refugees. They were self-organized, built themselves a temporary home. Hind spent her waking hours on the control deck, slept in her quarters with the hatches open to the control deck. The captain's office was located off the control deck with quarters linked to both the office and main corridor. She was never more than fifteen feet from the passive DRADIS alarm.

"Where were these refugees going?" Cadmus pressed the issue yet again. "What was their plan to escape Virgon authority? Virgon law?"

"That's no longer relevant, is it?" Without any semblance of Colonial authority, her actions no longer deserved scrutiny. The smuggler she was trying to reach in the asteroid belt never showed. She and her two dozen survivors were joined by four more, many more in the convoy Lieutenants Cadmus and Fletcher described.

"I've read some accounts of the situation on Hibernia." Fletcher was sympathetic to a peoples' determination of self-rule. She had served under Virgon officers and most were dismissive of her. Property rights were still determined by primogeniture. There was open conflict within Virgon society.

"We've all heard about it. Ever since the Hibernion sect habitated the Virgon moon, there have been reports of terrorism and suppression. It's not something we're going to solve today. We need to return to the Convoy, present our reports and let the Commander decide on the fate of these people." Cadmus was convinced they were terrorists, at best wanted felons. They were peaceable as long as they thought they were out of Colonial reach. He wanted a Marine contingent at hand to contain them if necessary. Two officers and a pair of Marine corporals were a poor showing if these people turned violent. And he still didn't have sufficient information on Kery to trust her. She brought him aboard. That showed some trust. He was now in a strong position standing on her control deck, armed, with a pair of Marines to cover the approaches.

"Our priority should be to rejoin your convoy. We are defenceless if another Cylon Raider decides to search for their missing comrade." Hind sat at the main console. Her jump engines had spun up during their conversation. "What are the coordinates?"


	5. Chapter 5

"I'll pilot this ship." Cadmus had the coordinates memorized. Two sets of coordinates were burned into his memory: the position of the convoy protected by the Talaria, and, the coordinates where he had left Semele behind. "If you don't mind." he added with a hint of politeness.

"We're past the need to maintain military secrets." Hind saw the Lieutenant was not going to back down. He had a scrap of authority and was going to hold it tight. She booted a second terminal. She was not going to give Lieutenant Cadmus unfettered access to the main console. It was coded to her identity. He could use a secondary console, one with very limited access. "Fine. Use that console. It has FTL drive access."

Cadmus eyed Hind's console. He noted the second console was tied to the FTL drive and nothing else. She was keeping her thumb on him. "Thank you." He entered the coordinates from memory. They had left the convoy hours earlier on a fishing expedition and were coming back with two dozen refugees to add to the hundreds that had been part of their original convoy. "Those are the coordinates."

"FTL is spun up." Hind checked the coordinates. They would end up in deep space below the stellar plane of Helios Beta. The convoy was hiding in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing out there to attract Cylon attention. Hind counted down to zero. "Jump."

The small ship with it's load of cargo, two small military craft, few dozen passengers appeared in empty space. The passive DRADIS cleared and started to pick up it's new position. The navigation computer picked out bright stars and confirmed their new position.

"DRADIS is blank", remarked Lieutenant Fletcher watching the screen over Hind's left shoulder.

"It needs fifteen to twenty seconds." Hind had a line on a surplus military DRADIS system but the Fall of the Colonies interrupted that plan. Civilian ships rarely needed more than a proximity alarm after a jump. Commercial traffic followed very specific routes and schedules. As it was, her system had been modified for performance.

The DRADIS screen remained blank.

"Still blank." Fletcher bit her lip. "Nothing on screen."

"Nothing? Nothing at all?" Cadmus' heart sank. The convoy would only move on if there had been a threat. "How good is your DRADIS?"

"It's working." Hind responded defensively. She checked what she could; there wasn't anything to calibrate against. "There are no navigation transponders this far out. No transponders at all."

"We should use the active DRADIS on the Rhino. It's fifty years old but it's military grade; it'll be more advanced than any civilian system." Cadmus had turned down the corridor towards the Rhino on the landing pad. He picked up his pace into a run as he suited up.

"It /does/ have an active DRADIS most." Fletcher had only ever used active DRADIS in search-and-rescue deployments. It could detect very small objects; debris. It would also alert Cylons at some distance to their position. The leading edge of the DRADIS pulse would cross half of the Helios Beta system before degrading. "Something must have happened. They must have jumped to emergency muster."

"It may be in the Raptor's FTL log." Cadmus stopped when he got to the airlocks. "I'll access the Raptor's FTL computer. Fletcher, get to the Rhino and sweep with active DRADIS." If Semele was right, and there was a threat nearby, they'd want to jump to the emergency coordinates of the convoy. From any other position, the coordinates would be useless. Neither the Raptor, the Rhino nor the smuggler's ship would have a navigation computer powerful enough to crunch the numbers from scratch. Jump coordinates were always relative. They needed to jump as soon as the FTL had spun back up from as close to the convoy's original position as possible as soon as possible.

Fletcher grabbed her helmet and chased Cadmus down the corridor. Cadmus was already moving across the landing pad when she cycled the airlock and stepped out to the airless hull. She moved as quickly as she could to the Rhino. She had set the system to hibernate and it took only a second to wake up. "DRADIS is online."

Hind compared the positions of the stars against a computer-generated map. Nearby ships would blot out the background stars. "I'm not picking up any silhouettes."

Fletcher quickly scanned nearby space. "Neither am I. I'm going to ping once with active DRADIS." She hesitated a moment to see if there were objections from either Cadmus or Kery. She was going to light up on every DRADIS system in a moment. She pressed the button. There was no sound. Her display showed the growing wavefront. "No contacts at one metric... one hundred metrics... two hundred metrics." Fletcher felt relief and panic when nothing was visible within five hundred metrics. There was no debris field. If the Cylons had shown up, they didn't hit any ships from the convoy.

Lieutenant Cadmus signed into the FTL computer. It's independence from the main computer kept it from being corrupted by the Cylon virus. His training to use the kernel system has proved handy. He noted the coordinates and was climbing back out of the Raptor on his way to the airlock. "I have the coordinates."

"Lieutenant. We should confirm the last set of coordinates." Hind thought it odd that there'd been no trace of the convoy. It was entirely possible they'd jumped to the wrong place.

Cadmus compared the number he had written down to the log within the FTL drive's control system. He read the numbers aloud. They matched.

As Lieutenant Cadmus read off the numbers, Hind checked them against her position. "We are exactly where the coordinates indicate. We didn't jump to the wrong spot." From their current position and basing jump coordinates on the positions of nearby stars and planets, she could verify the coordinates she was given. Her ability to calculate jump coordinates was limited. Her navigation computer wasn't as sophisticated as that aboard a colonial ship-of-the-line. She could take them back to the asteroid field and follow pre-programmed flight paths. And, she conceded, she could jump to coordinates in the middle of nowhere.

"But, Talaria is gone The whole convoy is gone." The thought of the convoy leaving her behind had crossed her mind but it was so remote. If anything, she'd be in a Raptor fending off a Cylon attack to give the convoy the opportunity to escape. She would hear the Commander give the order to jump, to leave her behind. How, she racked her brain, could they leave without leaving a buoy or a sentinel for them.

"There's no danger in remaining here. Whatever prompted your convoy to jump..." Hind had been hiding from an active Cylon patrol for weeks. For some, as asteroid field provided a place to hide versus the exposure of open space. Hind could see it more like an ocean. The Cylons patrolled the shallows. Moving deeper into the ocean or moving deeper into space made the odds of being found more and more remote. "The Cylons have no reason to search this area of open space more than any other. The DRADIS pulse will dissipate and I'll have my FTL spun up. We can wait for word from your convoy."

"I'll stay with the Rhino." Lieutenant Fletcher wanted to be at her station. There were no Cylon ships within one thousand metrics, but, no Colonial ships, either.

"Acknowledged". Cadmus nodded as he looked over the the Rhino tied down onto the landing platform of the smuggler's ship. Once returned to the convoy, it's fate and that of her captain would be decided. He felt uneasy about the fact that the convoy was gone. The Raptor hadn't been gone long, no more than a few hours. There was nothing to indicate why the convoy had moved on. The coordinates were random and nowhere near anything of value. Cadmus sealed the outer airlock door and began the cycle.

"How long will we wait?" Fletcher was willing to stay with the Rhino until her suit ran out of air. "They'll wonder what happened to us. They'll send an SAR team."

"They would have sent an SAR team to the asteroid field." Cadmus knew full well the convoy was done, they were a pair of soldiers in a Raptor versus the hundreds of lives, including civilians, within the convoy. "We're casualties of war, Semele."

"You say that as if we don't have any value to the convoy. Our Raptor, and now a Rhino, are valuable to the fleet." She couldn't imagine why the convoy jumped without leaving them something, some sort of breadcrumb they could follow. No, the Commander wouldn't do that. A cylon could follow the breadcrumb as well, or better, than a colonial.

"We are soldiers. Whatever prompted the convoy to jump, it was more important than the lives to two soldiers." Cadmus no longer felt the pang of loss. The Fates had busily cut the threads of life for 99% of the Colonies. They had dulled their scissors cutting the lives of so many short. Cadmus' own life was borrowed time; he had survived the Fall. He did not know the hour of his own death; it would arrive without warning. "Kery is right. We'll stay at this position as long as it's tenable."

"Do you have a plan other than waiting?" Hind added a bit of contempt to her voice; she knew it would grate Lieutenant Cadmus.

"No. We will remain at the last known position of the convoy."

"You're confident. I don't mind waiting. We have ample food and water, plenty of unopened cargo containers to raid." Some of the cargo she carried proved useful in their situation.

"Let's go see these rebels." Cadmus turned and, with a glance, a Marine fell into step. The second Marine corporal would stay behind on an empty control deck.

"Sure." Hind didn't like his attitude of presumed criminality of the people she had smuggled off Hibernia. He was the kind of officer who would throw his weight around. She grabbed a small dusty item off a shelf and pocketed it. One of the marines noticed but it was too small to be a weapon. He was sharp. She had a weapon hidden on her person before the Colonials came aboard. The item from the shelf was insurance. She picked up a device from the console surface. The console blanked and the handheld device became Hind's means of control of her ship. 

The lieutenant noted the lack of trust by the cargo carrier's captain. Talaria had moved the convoy and their current position was safe as could be expected. If the convoy deployed an SAR team, it would be to this position. Only from this position, would the SAR team would have relative jump coordinates for the asteroid belt. "It may be a long wait for rescue."

Hind's first thought was that she did not need rescue. To survive the Cylons, though, she needed a military refit. "We have supplies enough for six months. I have four full water tankers on board."

"Good. The Rhino's DRADIS may be old military hardware but it will still be more sensitive than anything in civilian use." Cadmus didn't turn his head as he spoke. He had Semele on the Rhino. He trusted her to keep a watch for Cylon activity. "How long for the jump engines to spin up? If the Cylons forced the convoy to jump, they will come back and hold this position."

"Fifteen minutes. Our jump range is limited with so little time for calculation." She no longer had transponders to provide safe waypoints. Her first knowledge of the Fall of the Colonies was a Cylon raider in place of a commercial route transponder. "Is there anywhere to go?"

"Our best option is to remain at this position until Talaria deploys a search Raptor." the lieutenant replied icily.

"With all due respect, lieutenant, despite our supplies, we will require a more defensible ship."

"The Rhino has functional DRADIS. We need a ship of the line to supply a new main computer for the Raptor. We're waiting here for Talaria."

"I wouldn't think you'd be the kind to run and hide." Hind needled the lieutenant's pride. "A half-working Rhino is not going to fend off a Cylon raider. Not a second time."


	6. Chapter 6

Hind followed the lieutenant through the hatch. She could see the reaction on the faces of those that had hidden in the converted cargo container for weeks. Of survivors of the Fall of the Colonies, these were the only people who had some semblance of closure. Before climbing into a cargo container, they said their final goodbyes to loved ones. All of them knew they would never see their families again.

Cathal Quirinus heard a murmur amongst the refugees. He stood and moved quickly to the hatch that linked his people to the ship. Their host allowed them to walk the corridor that served as the spine of the ship contracted to carry them to Leonis.

A few of the refugees stood and moved away from the Colonial officer. They had learned to shuffle slowly away from authorities to avoid being noticed. They used peripheral vision to keep tabs on the two strangers, looking at the ground as they moved.

Cathal stepped out and ahead of his people.

"Cathal," Hind said with genuine warmth in her heart. It was in contrast to the cold tone she reserved for the lieutenant. "This is Lieutenant Cadmus of the Colonial Navy."

Quirinus kept a weary eye on the Lieutenant Cadmus. It sounded Tauron. "Keryneia. We have been found by a Colonial ship, I presume."

"No. The Lieutenant is determined to wait in open space for his ship. It's most likely destroyed by the Cylons. Our situation is unchanged." Hind had spent hours with Cathal and the refugees while they hid in the asteroid field.

Cadmus didn't appreciate her charactization of the situation. "I'm a Raptor pilot assigned to the escort ship Talaria. We're in a holding pattern until Talaria and her convoy return to this position."

"I see. Our situation, then, remains unchanged." The de facto leader nodded his head knowlingly.

An uneasy silence had fallen over the refugees. There was none of the aggression and social domination one would expect of a confined group. Their escape from Hibernia moments ahead of the Cylon attack upon the Colonies was interpreted in conflicting ways. Cathal was a man of faith, but, he could not believe his strand of life had been set aside from the whole of the Colonies.

"You situation, sir, is in transition." Cadmus didn't appreciate the sense of superiority by a man huddled in a cargo container. His demeanour off. "What do you call yourself?"

"Cathal Quirinus." The man said proudly. He could trace his ancestry to the founding of the Colonies.

"Quirinus. It means 'spear'." Cadmus smiled inwardly. The man's name betrayed him.

"It does. In the old language." Cathal didn't like the lieutenant's insistence on the literal interpretation of his name. It had been whispered that he would lead the refugees to found a new colony. His blood had been thoroughly diluted over generations; it was not the blood of an original Founder of the Colonies.

"You were the needle in the side of the Canceron royal family." Cadmus chided. "Are you Quirinam Hiber?"

The old agitator had that slur leveled at him so many times. It was an easy attack. Cathal leaned into the accusation. "Quirinam Hiber seek to otherthrow the malignant Canceron oppression. They use violent action to unsettle the royal family. I am a writer. I inspire oppressed people to band together, create their own social structures that can resist those imposed on us. Small pockets of resistence can be suppressed. The flood cannot be held back. I precipitate the flood."

"You conspired to overthrow the government with words?"

"Correct." Cathal had added an epigrammatic pun in his reponse and the lieutenant didn't even react. He kept focused on the soldier and didn't see if Keryneia had noticed.

"Who are these other people? You fled with children?"

"Some are outspoken critics of the royal family or the apparatus of the state. Others came to the notice of those in power by chance or coincidence." Cathal had come to know the circumstances of every person in the cargo container with him. It was far from an organized escape. "All of us left when presented with the opportunity. Some bring a single child. Most could not return to see their children one last time before fleeing-"

The lieutenant supressed his first reaction. "We've all lost family and friends. We are in a state of war. You will find a way to contribute, something other than shouting into the storm."

"As I understand the situation, we are waiting for rescue." Cathal responded with a hint of incredulity in his voice. Lieutenant Cadmus was the young boy standing on a mound of dirt mocking nearby children without realizing that by defending his mound, he had imprisoned himself on it and the other children were free.

"I will not tolerate any sedition, Quirinus." Lieutenant Cadmus didn't see the old man as a direct threat. A few people stood well aback and watched the exchange. "Do you bear weapons?"

Kery stepped between the lieutenant and Cathal. "You act like the self-satisfied Royal Secret Police these people escaped from."

"Keryneia" said the old professor gently.

Kery didn't step aside. She could see the fierceness in Lieutenant Cadmus' eyes. He was not going to back down. She had to diffuse the situation. She could feel her ace in the hole in her pants pocket. "Step out, Lieutenant." she ordered.

"Any person stepping outside this container will be searched." Lieutenant Cadmus directed the statement at the refugees. To captain Hind it was a warning. She held the only means of control of the ship and it was coded to her personal use. With the Fall of the Colonies, the War Measures Act was automatically in effect. It imposed martial law, suspended habeas corpus, implemented censorship and authorized forfeiture of property. The proverb that 'possession is nine-tenths of the law' applied here. He had the authority to seize the ship. The captain was unlikely to surrender it and he had no means to compel her.

Without further comment Lieutenant Cadmus turned and exited the container.

"Corporal. Yourself, Corporal Atryton and I will spell off patrol duty. Stay outside the container. Search everyone who exits. Tag me in six hours." The lieutenant was implementing what security measures he could. He didn't have the manpower to thoroughly search the cargo container.

Kery could challenge his assertion of command. She needed to direct his efforts in the direction she wanted. "How long will we wait for the convoy to return?"

"We wait as long as necessary." The lieutenant did not have an answer for himself why the convoy would depart without leaving something behind. There was no debris, no buoy, no Raptor in stealth keeping watch. He had abandoned Semele once. He put the thought out of his head. The convoy abandoned them.

"I am unarmed, the Raptor is inoperable and we cannot rely on the Rhino. I have my FTL spun up. All we can do is run." Hind needed the proud lieutenant to feel vulnerable. He could dominate two dozen refugees but he could not stand against a Cylon raider. The idea had to be his own. "We need tactical capability."

"Arm a civilian ship?"

"We are both unarmed. How long do we stay here as clay pigeons?" Hind let the implication of them as target practice settle on the lieutenant's mind.

Lieutenant Cadmus was adamant they stay until they made contact with the convoy. Semele's snap shot was nine-tenths luck. It was imperative they be ready for the next confrontation with the Cylons. The cargo ship's captain would retain control of the ship; there was no way to wrest it from her. He and Semele would attempt to link the weapons systems of the Rhino and Raptor. "We have a fully armed Raptor. My priority is preparing defences. Other than that, we wait."


	7. Chapter 7

Semele sat on the control deck during her shift. The probability of encountering a Cylon raider was near zero. Passive DRADIS was practically a blank screen. There were no nearby planets, no asteroids, their heat signature was negligible. Equally absent was Talaria. There had been no signals, no SAR teams.

Lieutenant Cadmus finished his patrol of the ship and stopped at the control deck. He saw the blank log. The ship had fallen into a routine.

"This is ridiculous." Semele turned to face her superior officer. Even that distinction had blurred in the absence of any semblance of a chain of command. Lieutenant Cadmus commanded a group of three. He had hardened his view of the world.

"We have to maintain order and purpose. We don't know what happened to the convoy. This spot is what we have common." The lieutenant knew that unless they had something concrete to occupy their time, things would fall apart. He was the senior officer. Semele, the two marines, this ship's captain and the political agitators in the hold were his to lead.

"Talaria is gone." Semele avoided eye contact. She both wanted to be reassured that the convoy would return for them and to do something other than wait for the convoy to return.

"What's the alternative?" The question was more accusatory than he intended. Discipline had waned since his decision to hold their position. He had reduced DRADIS rotations to four hours. The agitators-Lt. Cadmus had downgraded their threat level due to lack of means-had been given more freedom of the ship. The pair of Marines secured the control deck and the ship's powerplant. "Where is a better place to be?"

"I don't know. We can't stay in the middle of nowhere forever." Semele was tired.

Cadmus had considered his options. The Cylons had bombarded the Colony Worlds. Nuclear reactors on Caprica had gone critical during the attack and poisoned the air with radioactive fallout. Shipping routes had been ambushed as evidenced by the Talaria convoy. "There are no safe havens."

Semele knew he was right. Being nowhere was safer than being somewhere. Cylons could watch every planet, every moon, every asteroid with raw materials necessary to support a colony, every source of tillium, every body in the Helios system with a living atmosphere. They were in open space distant from all of those, distant from shipping routes, distant from the Heliosian stars. "We have to go somewhere."

"Go on." He was content to let her work through her train of thought unaided. Either she was going to exhaust herself and admit there were no other options or come up with a plan he would actually consider.

"We spend our whole day watching for Cylons. The plan is to jump the second they appear. We're jumping from one middle-of-nowhere location to another middle-of-nowhere location." Her tiredness had turned into frustration. They were waiting for Talaria to come back looking for their lost Raptor. Clearly, the convoy had not backtracked looking for them. Weeks had passed. Their Raptor had been launched weeks ago scouting an asteroid field and had been abandoned. "We need to find somewhere with some shred of permanence."

Hind had overheard some of the conversation from her quarters separated from the command deck by an anteroom. "We need to make this ship defensible. Your plan, lieutenant, is to sit and wait. And, to turn tail and run the second we see a Cylon on DRADIS."

"We have a few missiles aboard the Raptor and Rhino." Fletcher and Cadmus had triggered the firing mechanisms of a few missiles during their ecounter with the Cylon Raider. They were unguided but found their target.

"I'm not confident about their accuracy. Those were lucky shots." Hind had watched on passive DRADIS as the two Colonials staggered through an encounter with a Cylon hunter. It had been hunting her for weeks, scanning the asteroid field and firing pot shots at random. "We need something more reliable than 'fire-and-pray' missiles."

"She's not wrong." Fletcher hadn't addressed Cadmus by his first name since they started their vigil for Talaria. He had become distant. He didn't need to play Commander. As long as he stood himself apart from everyone, he would be treated coldly. "We could protect ourselves with a proper defense system."

"I don't like it any more than you do." Cadmus knew they were on a knife-edge. He had kept Talaria's return as a touchstone to keep everyone focused. Too much time had passed. It was no longer a symbol to rally around. The team, his team, needed something more concrete. He had a pilot with nothing to fly, Marines acting as prison guards.

Hind watched the senior lieutenant mull things over. Clearly, he had considered it. She needed to open the door. There was time enough to convince him to install a weapons system aboard her ship. A few more tumblers had to fall into place to crack that lock. "If you can replace the computer racks aboard the Raptor, it will be your weapons platform."

"The Cylons will have hit every Colonial Station." Cadmus worked through a mental checklist. The Cylon raider had successfully hacked the Raptor and attempted to hack the Rhino. With that technology at hand, disabling small craft like Raptors and Vipers would gut the defensive capability of ships-of-the-line. A Cylon Basestar would be toe-to-toe with a Colonial Battlestar. The element of surprise would be short-lived and the Cylons would rely on overwhelming force against the Colonial Fleet's largest ships. Stations would be secondary targets.

There was no Colonial wireless traffic. The Cylon attack was quick and thorough. At best, surviving ships were observing wireless silence in the absence of a Fleet HQ to coordinate ship movements. Each and every station would be targeted by the Cylons so that surviving ships would not have repair nor refit facilities. Ships foolish enough to reach a Colonian Station could be picked off by the Cylons. "Where do you propose we go?"

"The Cylons cannot possibly patrol every single station. They don't have unlimited numbers." Hind could not risk the Hibernian survivors to explore military depots. Her ship was unarmed and required no less than twenty-five minutes to spin up her FTL drive. The armaments aboard the Raptor and Rhino could bridge that gap. "There are gaps in their patrols we can exploit. The Cylon tracking me had an erractic schedule. It could be minutes to hours between patrols with no predictability."

"In those hours, why not escape?" Fletcher did not understand the inaction. Waiting for Talaria to show up was... active but boring.

A Cylon is a machine and will follow it's program without a second thought. If Kery had remained in the asteroid field, she would eventually be discovered.

"Spinning up the FTL drive would be a dead giveaway." Hind cringed at her own choice of words. Active DRADIS would have easily found her while spinning up to jump out of the asteroid field. She survived by looking and acting like debris. "I couldn't guarantee I'd have the time to get away."

"You would have been there indefinitely." Cadmus considered the civilian captain hiding in the asteroids indefinitely out of fear and Fletcher speaking up out of boredom. "The Cylons are persistent but clearly stretched thin."

"There are other survivors." Radio silence was critical to remaining undetected. There was no way to know how many Colonials survived the Cylon invasion. "They had to divide their time among scattered survivors. A densely populated Colony world is an easy target for bombardment. Dispersed survivors are harder to kill."

"They're exerting as much effort to kill the last 1% as they did to kill the first 99%." Semele paraphrased from a lecture in college. The Cylons had no moral objection to atomic bombardment of a planet with a population of a billion people. Taking a step back and simply counting bodies as if it was just a number, the effort to kill a billion was near zero. Pushing a button racked up a tally of a billion. It was much tougher to tally people living in the mountains or on a remote farm or on a ship in open space. She had survived, Kery had survived and there were probably thousands of others who had survived. The Cylons would never completely eliminate them. If 0.1% survived, the Cylons won't have won.

Semele always had a softer heart than was good for her, he thought. "Chasing fragments of the Colonial population creates openings in their defences. How thoroughly defended are the Scorpia Shipyards? Ragnar Anchorage?"

Cadmus quickly thought through the military strategy employed by the Cylons. He had some facts to work with, knowledge of military history and his own experience. Unpredictable patrols disincenetivize organization. The larger proportion of time is allocated to locations with a known Colonial presence or evidence a Colonial presence or statistical probability of a Colonial presence. Hind and her single, insignificant ship occupied half a Cylon day. A location, like Scorpia, the Cylons believe they had decimated would warrant less interest. What algorithm did these machines apply. The value of the debris at Scorpia could elevate it's patrol rating. He didn't have enough information. He could not presume how the Cylons weighed the variables.

"Those are too large. There must be a station so small, so out of the way, as to warrant minimal patrols." Hind knew about Scorpia, the largest ship construction yard in the Twelve Colonies. At one time, every colony had it's own facility. The Original Twelve Battlestars were a symbol of unity against the Cylon threat. She didn't know how many yards survived to the present day.

"The disposition of Colonial ships and stations is not general knowledge." Cadmus considered the few stations he knew of besides the large, well-known stations. Gemenon Orbital was small.

"We have to assume that the Cylons have good intelligence. The Colonial Fleet no longer exists." Semele allowed a bit more bitterness into her voice than she intended. Days after the Fall, a few wireless signals continued to transmit. The Battlestar Galactica transmitted on an open channel for a very short time before going silent. The Cylons had insider knowledge and overwhelming numbers. She didn't think it was an inside job as some of her fellow officers spouted. "The Cylons hit Scorpia and Caprica immediately and worked down the line. Where would they have stopped? How small would a military facility or ship have to be before they stopped? Talaria is an escort in convoy with civilians and the Cylons still attacked."

"Starting at the top and working down a list by rote ties their hands. They are tireless. How much time will hunting down the remnants of the Fleet consume?" Cadmus was weighing how quickly the Cylons could work from the largest facilities downward, how many Cylon Basestars and Raiders were employed and how thoroughly those ships and facilities were neutralized. The short answer was that the Cylons had the manpower and tenacity to raze the entire Colonial Fleet.

"That Cylon Raider spent hours each day tracking my ship, a single, unarmed civilian ship." Hind had been prepared to hid indefinitely amongst the asteroids. The Cylons did not grow bored, did not tire and did not grow old. "Would they give the same attention to ships they knew were dead? Can we assume that they're not going to patrol battle sites?"

The Cylons were also thorough. Hind and the Colonial officers had low standards. They needed to reboot the Raptor, firstly, and find unused ordinance. She doubted the Cylons would take the time to explore every last missile still in the hold of a ship. One thing Cylons did not have was unlimited time. They could only look for her ship for a few hours each day and only with a single Raider. "If a Cylon decides they've won a fight, they're not going to doubt themselves after-the-fact."

"No. They can replay the encounter second-by-second from the point-of-view of every Cylon that was present. They don't leave anyone behind. " Cadmus had seen the devastation of Cylon attacks. The Talaria convoy had come across more than one debris field in the weeks since the Fall.

"They're not thorough, though." Fletcher had seen ships hollowed out. "They kill the people. The prohibition on intelligent machines precludes Colonials from making a computer anywhere near as intelligent as a Cylon. Our computer, our ships are dumb as rocks to them. They burn out the cockpit of a Raptor, kill the crew, hack the computer, kill it, but leave the hull to float freely in space."

Without a crew or a computer, thought Semele, the components of a Raptor are nothing more than spare parts. A ship is inanimate.

Cadmus had memorized the exact position where their convoy had come across the Cylons. He hesitated a moment. What was one massacre site versus another? They would be picking through graves anyway. They were alive and do everything to stay alive. "I know the coordinates where the Talaria convoy first came across the Cylons."

"Frak. Seriously?" Semele said before the thought registered what Moari was suggesting.

"It's as good a place as any other." Cadmus had resolved himself to replace the Raptor's computer core and arm it and the Rhino. It wouldn't even have mattered if he knew someone personally from the convoy. He didn't. Talaria was enroute with a cluster of civilian ships as a show of force. They followed a schedule. Maybe Talaria's Commander had returned to the same position. He saw some emotion welling in Semele. "We'll pick up exactly where this all started."

Fletcher saw Moari reach out and pulled her hand back. She didn't want to pick up from where it all started. The Fates wore out their scissors that day. Why would he pick a position from which they narrowly escaped the Cylons. She stopped breathing. He wanted to find Talaria. She was hopeful and angry. If they found Talaria: the Commander would be in charge again, she would be back with friends. More likely they'd be pushing the dead aside to pick through what the Cylons left behind. The pain in her chest felt like a hole being bored through her. She was still holding her breath. She breathed deeply and the pain intensified. "Fine."

"Semele." Moari admonished. She started this. She was bored of watching the DRADIS day after day. The next best option was to find somewhere the Cylons had forgotten and pick up what spare parts and ordinance as they could. There was a dead Raptor on the landing pad. It needed new computer racks free of the Cylon hack. It made sense. It's what she wanted, afterall. He leaned to look her in the eye.

Semele walked off the control deck.

"Leave it." whispered Kery. He cared about her and under different circumstances... maybe. Kery liked Semele. She deserved better than the self-absorbed, overly-sure-of-himself lieutenant. He was a jackass. "Give her tonight. We'll jump tomorrow morning."

"It's my shift on DRADIS." Cadmus stated as he sat at the console where Semele had been avoiding his gaze. "We'll jump when she comes back on duty."


End file.
